How Discipline Equals Freedom — An Equation For Living Fearlessly

Have you ever asked yourself what it takes to live a truly free life? — a life free from fear, regret, anxiety, disappointment, or any other negative human emotion?

Paradoxically, the answer to true freedom lies in completely accepting our capacity to suffer these human emotions.

Emotions, whether they are painful or joyful, are an inextricably part of the human experience, and therefore impossible to be avoided or ignored. So instead of avoiding, we must constructively learn to deal with the pain that life’s problems generate.

The answer: “Discipline”.

It’s the answer that retired Navy Seal officer Jocko Willink popularized with his catchy one-liner: “Discipline equals freedom”.

But what is discipline exactly? And how do we cultivate it?

Inspired by the book ‘The Road Less Travelled’ by M. Scott Peck, I have defined discipline as a system of 3 basic techniques:

1. Delay of Gratification

2. Assumption of Responsibility

3. Dedication to the Truth

1. Delay of Gratification

Why do we procrastinate? We all know very well why, although we might not always admit it:

It’s because we want to avoid the pain of work and effort. It’s because we hate to sacrifice the ease of the present and have to suffer through something we don’t like.

Here are a few personal examples you might relate with:

• Watching a YouTube video, instead of working on my thesis.
• Sleeping in, instead of doing my morning workout.
• Watching Netflix, instead of fixing my bike tire.

By procrastinating on my thesis, morning workout, and fixing my bike tire, I’m consciously sacrificing the future to have the ‘fun stuff’ now — which is the opposite of delay of gratification.

“Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with.”

— M. Scott Peck

Easier said than done of course. Otherwise, why would anyone procrastinate, ever?

The thing is, instant gratification feels good immediately. We love the dopamine rush and are temporarily blinded to the long-term consequences. We’re doing what’s expedient.

On the other hand, delaying gratification takes effort and is therefore often painful immediately. But, we’re acting in line with our long-term goals — so we do what’s meaningful.

In short: Delay of gratification protects you from the expedient and gives you the freedom to realize your (meaningful) long-term goals.

2. Assumption of Responsibility

“No problem can be solved until an individual assumes responsibility for solving it.”

— M. Scott Peck

Take the following example: Say there’s a huge pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen, and the smell has become… a problem.

You’ll first have to accept it’s yours to clean up — otherwise, why clean it up? Of course, it could be the case your roommate is responsible. Even then, it would be your responsibility to tell him, as then your roommate is the problem that needs solving.

Now, it’s not surprising we most often don’t like accepting responsibility, as this automatically means putting more problems on our plate. And who wants more problems?

However, the problem with avoiding responsibility is that we then hand over that responsibility to some other entity (e.g. individual or organization).

In that case, we give away our power to that entity, lose control of solving the problem, and (by the grace of the gods) pray for a magical resolve of the issue to our liking.

So, you may be irritated your roommate doesn’t clean the dirty dishes (by his doing), as he doesn’t assume responsibility. However, the dishes don’t magically clean themselves, and so you’ve externalized the control of your mental state. You’ve given away your power.

To take back your power, assume it’s your problem to confront him about it — as that is YOUR responsibility as a roommate.

In a nutshell: The assumption of responsibility empowers you to solve your life’s problems through self-directed actions and decisions.

It gives you control over the direction of your life and the freedom to choose where to go. The more responsibility, the more control, and the greater the freedom you have of where to go.

3. Dedication to the Truth

We all have our personal constructs of reality that are built by what we observe with our senses. Let’s call this construct a map with which we navigate ourselves through life.

We continue to improve and update this map our entire lives, as we’re gathering new information and exploring novel situations.

If the map is right and high resolution enough, we’ll get where we want to go in life. If the map is wrong, we stumble and know the map needs revisions.

This, however, is where the problem lies: We often reject or refuse to the map to be wrong because accepting it to be wrong is a painful process. In a real sense, a part of ourselves (like a thought, idea, or opinion) has to die, be burned off, and be replaced with something new.

Therefore, new facts about reality (let’s call it truth) can feel like a real threat. Being wrong is often painful to admit (even to ourselves) — and for this reason, we sometimes refuse to update our map, leading to spreading this thing we call: a lie.

The problem is, (as everyone has experienced) you often have to create new lies to hide old ones as you fear the old lie will be revealed. And the more lies you’ve told, the more necessary it is to lie again.

So, lying about what you know to be true leads you to be in a continual state of fear.

On the contrary, if you tell the truth, no matter how painful it is — if you’re willing to let a wrong part of yourself die and update your map like a torched Fenix rising from the ashes (little poetic touch) — you have no need to hide any lies.

In other words, if you have the courage to admit when you’re wrong and tell the truth, you don’t have to hide any lies and become free from fear.

Discipline² = Freedom

Okay, I lied… discipline doesn’t equal freedom. The equation is actually a little more complicated: even discipline itself must be disciplined.

Yes, we must delay gratification every day and think about the future — yet we must also (now and then, and non-destructively) gratify ourselves in the present and act spontaneously.

Yes, we must assume as much responsibility as possible to empower ourselves — yet we must be careful not to take on more problems than we can carry, and be able to reject responsibility that is not truly ours.

Yes, we must continually push ourselves to be brutally honest — yet we must also know when to withhold the whole truth when appropriate, and be sure this decision is morally guided.

So, discipline must be disciplined (Discipline*Discipline = Discipline²)

Now, although we have to be careful not to overwhelm ourselves, I do believe we must continually push against and expand the limits of our current level of discipline, every day.

• To delay gratification in a way that makes us feel a little uncomfortable.
• To take on an amount of responsibility that makes us slightly nervous.
• To tell all the truths that feel a bit painful to admit.

The fact is, the more you practice these disciplines, the easier they will become over time. And the bigger the discomfort you overcome, the faster your discipline will grow.

Grow your discipline, and you’ll grow your freedom. The freedom to achieve your long-term goals, choose the direction of your life, and live fearlessly.

Solve for Discipline, and find your freedom. Doesn’t that sound like an equation worth solving?